Not a Laughing Matter

The Joke's On Us


Anti-Catholicism is not hardly rare in America. Anti-Irish,
Anti-Italians, who were mostly catholic, was a sentiment widespread and common
in the 19th and even earlier 20th Century. My father, a half-Irish catholic man
recounted seeing signs from the 1960s on store fronts in Boston that read
"Help Wanted, NINA" NINA means "No Irish Need Apply." It was such a common
discriminatory employment practice it had its own acronym.

But what we see now with all the 'scandals' is more than Anti-Catholicism- it's
a ferocious wave of Anti-Christism- a bad reflection on the Lord himself, because the object
of the joking is now the priesthood. And this, the church cannot ignore, and must address
because it slanders
Jesus himself.

These two jokes made their rounds in my inbox this week (the first was retold at a comedy night contest and won the prize for the most uproarious applause):

1/ A priest and a lawer and a troup of boyscouts were on a plane and the plane was going down.
Only two parachutes were on the plane. The priest said- Lets give them to some of the boyscouts.
The lawyer said "Screw all the boyscouts!"
The Priest said "Do we really have time?"

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2/ In the Seminary the final test for graduation was a 'purity test' where the seminarians were all lined in a row naked with a little bell tied to their winkies. A georgeous buxom perfumed blonde then walked in front of all of them. Anyone whose bell rang would not get to graduate.
A big buzoomed blonde undressed and walked naked in front of all of them and only one seminarian had his bell jump up and ring so furiously it flew off his winkie. He bent down to pick it up and at the sight of his bending all the other seminarian bells rang so hard it played a bell choir of "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring."

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Funny, funny, ha, ha, right?
No, seriously emblematic of why the church needs to have a healthy heterosexual family model in its priesthood. It would have twice the number of priests who could do twice the work and it would need half the funds for the Saint Luke's Institute to treat priests who think their humanity is evil. It is hurting itself, it is persecuting healthy heterosexual women and it is a perverse betrayal of who Jesus was and is and ever shall be.